Eurabia: Will Europe Preserve its Heritage?

With birthrates among traditional Europeans in decline and rapid population growth among Europe's Muslims, one European asks whether Europe wants to preserve its traditional identity.

by Paul Kieffer
August 28, 2010

Members of Western democratic parliaments are
known to voice concerns on issues beyond their own national
borders. Topics like human rights, poverty, AIDS in the
developing world and other issues sometimes echo from the halls
of Congress, the British Parliament, Germany's Bundestag and
elsewhere.

Perhaps the most memorable example of a member of parliament
(MP) speaking out on a perceived danger abroad was British MP
Winston Churchill during the 1930s. On numerous occasions
Churchill warned his country of the danger it faced from the
ascent of German dictator Adolf Hitler. Accused of
"scaremongering," Churchill did not relent. When British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain returned as a hero from his 1938
meeting in Munich with Hitler, proclaiming "peace in our time,"
Churchill predicted a future "day of reckoning."

The rest of the story is history.

For the last six years a Western European politician has
made it his mission in life to warn his own countrymen –
and anyone else in Europe who will listen – about a
threat staring Europe in the face within its own continental
borders. The threat he perceives is the demise of Europe's
traditional cultural and religious identity as a result of the
gradual Islamization of Europe.

Who is he? He is Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch
parliament and a vocal opponent of "Eurabia."

Who is Geert Wilders?

Some readers may not recognize Geert Wilders' name. After
all, the Netherlands is not one of the world's larger countries
and most people – even in Europe – do not follow
the Dutch domestic political scene closely. Wilders is 47 years
old and was born in the city of Venlo on the Dutch-German
border. He was raised a Roman Catholic but left the church upon
reaching adulthood. Despite leaving the Catholic Church,
Wilders supports what he calls "Judeo-Christian values."

After completing his education, Wilders traveled to the
Middle East, where he lived in Israel for a time and also
visited some of the neighboring Arab countries. The impressions
he took home from those visits have shaped his personal
assessment of Islam, which he says is similar to the viewpoint
of none other than Winston Churchill. Churchill, as a young
man, served as a soldier and war correspondent in the late
1890s in British India (in what is today Pakistan) and the
Sudan.

Churchill summed up his perception of Islam's effects on its
adherents: "The effects are apparent in many countries.
Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish
methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist
. . . Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities
– but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social
development of those who follow it."

And Churchill concluded: "No stronger retrograde force
exists in the world" (The River War, 1899).

At the beginning of his political career, Wilders worked as
a speechwriter for the conservative-liberal People's Party for
Freedom and Democracy (VVD). He moved to Utrecht in 1996 and
was elected to the city council and in 2002 to the lower house
of the Dutch parliament.

Wilders had problems with his party's position on admitting
Turkey as a member of the European Union, leading him to form
his own party in 2004, now called the Party for Freedom (PVV).
EU membership for Turkey would eventually mean more Muslims
living elsewhere in Europe, although Wilders already sees
Europe's cultural and religious heritage threatened by the
current Muslim population of Europe. Wilders points out that
100 years ago there were fewer than 100 Muslims living in the
Netherlands, compared to nearly 1 million today out of a total
population of some 16 million.

Wilders pulls no punches about his desire to see limits
placed on the influence of Islam in the Netherlands and Europe.
He is against the use of any language but Dutch in mosques
located in the Netherlands. He also opposes the construction of
new mosques in his country.

Speaking in the Dutch parliament, he once said that the
Koran should be banned in the Netherlands, adding that if
Islam's holy book were to be stripped of passages proclaiming
violence, it would be reduced to the size of a comic book.

With this opinion, Wilders is on the same page as Pope
Benedict XVI. In a speech given in Regensburg in September
2006, Benedict quoted a medieval Christian emperor who equated
Islam with violence: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that
was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman,
such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he
preached."

Accused of being a racist, Wilders counters by saying that
he does not hate Muslims. Instead, he just hates Islam. On his
own blog, Wilders summarizes that viewpoint: "The purpose of
Islam is the total submission of oneself and others to the
unknowable Allah, whom we must serve through total obedience to
Muhammad as leader of the Islamic state (suras 3:31, 4:80,
24:62, 48:10, 57:28)." According to Wilders, history teaches
us that Muhammad was not a prophet of love and compassion, but
a mass murderer and a tyrant: "Muslims could not have a more
deplorable role model."

Growing popularity and influence

Geert Wilders is typically characterized by the mainstream
media as being a right-wing populist, an anti-Islam agitator or
xenophobic. And yet twice in annual public opinion surveys he
was rated the second-most-popular politician in the
Netherlands. In order to remain independent, his PVV refuses to
accept a government subsidy available during election campaigns
(all other Dutch parties accept the government subsidy).

In June's parliamentary elections, Geert Wilders' party, the
PVV, won 24 of the 150 seats in the lower house, a remarkable
increase over its previous result of nine seats in 2006.
Wilders originally agreed to support a minority coalition
government formed by two other conservative parties, which
would have given him considerable leverage in the new
government. However, the arrangement collapsed when members of
one of the parties had reserverations about being supported by
Wilders.

Wilders has had to pay a price for his stance on Islam,
however. He has received numerous death threats and has been
constantly accompanied by six bodyguards since a letter
threatening his death was found in the apartment of the Islamic
fanatic who assassinated Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in broad
daylight on a street in Amsterdam in November 2004. His
bodyguards "stand outside the door when I go to the bathroom,"
he once said.

Wilders never sleeps two nights in a row in the same
location. Because of these security restrictions, he is able to
see his wife only once every two weeks. Wilders has described
his life as "essentially living in a prison."

Muslim population growth in Europe

Wilders sees the increasing Muslim population in Europe as
one of the most serious threats to the preservation of Europe's
traditional cultural and religious heritage. It comes as no
surprise that he opposes continued immigration from Islamic
countries and Turkey's bid for full EU membership, which would
eventually open Europe's gates to unrestricted Turkish
immigration.

Muslims currently account for about 5 percent of the
European Union's population. If Turkey's bid for EU membership
is successful, on the day Turkey becomes a member the
percentage of Muslims living in the EU will increase to 20
percent. But current population numbers are only part of the
story. Turkey would also soon be the EU's largest country.
Based on current population trends, Turkey will surpass
Germany's 82 million inhabitants by the year 2020 and may have
as many as 100 million people by the year 2050.

However, even if Turkey does not become a full member of the
European Union, the percentage of Muslims living in Europe will
double within 15 years. Europe's Islamic community is
experiencing a population explosion. At the same time, the
traditional non-Muslim population of Europe will decline by an
estimated 3.5 percent. Europe's traditional non-Islamic
population is slowly but surely dying out.

Germany's birthrate is a prime example of the population
decline among Europe's traditional nationalities. Statistically
each woman in Germany currently has 1.36 live births during her
childbearing years, far below the 2.1 average considered
necessary to maintain a country's population. Given current
trends, the research by the private Institute for Population
and Development in Berlin indicates that the number of children
born in Germany will drop 50 percent by the year 2050.

The declining birthrate is most acute in the former East
Germany, where the average birthrate since the unification of
Germany in 1990 is 0.77 live births. Reiner Klingholz, the
director of the private Berlin Institute for Population and
Development, summarized the situation with some humor: "With
the Vatican as the exception, that's the lowest birthrate
anywhere in the world."

If this situation continues unhindered, it is only a matter
of time before the Islamic community in Europe becomes a
sizable minority and even a majority of Europe's total
population. In 2005, for example, there were more children of
Islamic parentage born in France than people of a traditional
French background.

Although not directly related to Europe's declining
birthrate, it is also interesting to note that the number of
Europeans who profess to be Christians has declined noticeably
in the last 100 years. In 1900 approximately 95 percent of
Europeans were members of the Christian faith. At the beginning
of the 21st century that percentage had dropped to 75 percent,
with a sharp increase in the decline just in the last 25
years.

For example, since 1980 the population segment that
identifies itself as Christian in Belgium declined by 20
percent; in the Netherlands, by 18 percent; and in France, by
16 percent. Today's Europe is also the only continent
witnessing a decline in the number of Catholics. The annual
number of infant baptisms in the Philippines is now more than
the combined annual total for France, Italy, Poland and
Spain.

If the present trends continue, Europe will slowly become
what Geert Wilders calls "Eurabia" – a continent whose
traditional heritage becomes drowned out by a fast-growing
Muslim community, now a minority, but possibly a majority of
Europe's population in the future.

Europe's religious future

Bible prophecy shows that Europe's traditional religious
heritage will wield considerable influence in the future, but
in a way not imagined by Dutch MP Geert Wilders. The book of
Revelation contains a prophecy about 10 kings who collectively
form a "beast" that Jesus Christ will conquer and destroy upon
His return to the earth.

We read about them in Revelation 17:12-14: "The ten horns
which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as
yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the
beast . . . These will make war with the Lamb, and
the Lamb will overcome them" (emphasis added).

Those 10 horns are part of a "beast" described in verse 3 as
having "seven heads and ten horns," with the 10 horns –
the final 10 kings who will fight against Christ –
apparently representing one of the seven heads. Each of the
seven heads is a "mountain" – biblical symbolism for a
kingdom or empire – with its king (verses 9-10). Verse 10
clarifies that the heads appear in chronological sequence, and
the final "head," or king (verse 10), will appear as the 10
kings symbolized by 10 horns (verse 12).

This sequence of rulers is dominated by a religious system
called "Babylon the Great" that emanates from "the great harlot
[city] who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the
earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth
were made drunk with the wine of her fornication" (Revelation
17:1-2). The true Church of God is pictured in the Bible as a
chaste bride waiting to be married to Christ. The harlot of
Revelation 17 is a deceptive religious system masquerading as a
true system of worship.

As the modern heir of ancient Babylon's mystery religion,
the city of Rome is described as "drunk with the blood of the
saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (Revelation
17:6). It is a historical fact that Rome, more than any other
city, under the influence of a great religious system, has
orchestrated the persecution and martyrdom of "those who keep
the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (Revelation
14:12). Even early church writers recognized the connection
between Babylon and Rome by interpreting Peter's use of the
word "Babylon" in 1 Peter 5:13 to mean the city of Rome.

Pictured as a harlot sitting astride the "beast" of which
she is the cultural and spiritual center, this infamous city
has exerted a vast influence over the earth's "peoples,
multitudes, nations and languages" (Revelation 17:15, New
International Version). For a while she has enjoyed the status
and fame of being the city that "reigns over the kings of the
earth" (verse 18).

In other words, it appears that the composite "beast" of
Revelation 17 is the so-called Holy Roman Empire – the
resurrected Roman Empire dominated by the modern descendant of
the ancient Babylonian mystery religion. The final resurrection
of that empire will not be influenced by Islam, but by the same
religious system that has dominated it since A.D. 554.

Geert Wilders and Europe's future

While no one can predict what course Geert Wilders'
political future may take, it is interesting that his position
on Muslim population growth in Europe is consistent with Bible
prophecy. Islam has never been the religion of the Holy Roman
Empire, nor will it be in the future. Since the "great harlot"
of Revelation 17 is pictured as continually being the dominant
influence on the "beast" system, the Islamic minority in Europe
apparently will not grow to such an extent that it will prevent
the traditional religious system of the Holy Roman Empire from
exerting its influence in the end-time "beast" power.

With the fast-growing Islamic minority in Europe, what are
the implications for Europe's future vis-à-vis the
Islamic community and Islamic immigration? There would appear
to be several possibilities – all of which could be
listed as action points for Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom.
They include the following:

• Immigration from non-EU, Islamic countries may be
restricted at some point in the future.

• Residency for some – perhaps a majority –
of non-EU Islamic people living in Europe may be revoked at
some point in the future.

In the current liberal atmosphere in Europe, restricting
immigration for people of the Islamic faith, or even deporting
some of those who are already here, seems unlikely. However,
the violent reaction in the Netherlands to the murder in broad
daylight of Dutch movie producer Theo van Gogh by a Moroccan in
November 2004 shows what can happen in a tense confrontation.
Any restrictions placed on immigration from Islamic countries
would certainly strain relations between the European Union and
the Islamic world.

Meanwhile, Geert Wilders continues his efforts to preserve
Europe's heritage from Islamic influence. In July Wilders
announced an international "freedom alliance" to spread his
anti-Islam message across the West.

He told the Associated Press in an interview that he will
launch the international movement later this year, initially in
five countries: the United States, Canada, Britain, France and
Germany. This "is not just a Dutch problem . . . it
is a problem for the entire free West," he said. Wilders has
been invited to speak in Berlin on Oct. 2, 2010, to launch his
movement in Germany. It is the first invitation he has received
to speak in Germany since he founded his Party for Freedom, and
Wilders plans to give his presentation in German.

With his effort to defend Europe's traditional heritage
against growing Islamic influence, Geert Wilders is a man to
watch. He would be surprised to learn what kind of resurgence
of traditional religious fervor lies in Europe's future.

Despite the current demographic trends in Europe, Bible
prophecy indicates that the dominant religious influence on the
final resurrection of the Roman Empire will not be Islam.
Instead, it will be the same one that has existed for centuries
in previous revivals of the Holy Roman Empire – that of
"Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the
abominations of the earth" (Revelation 17:5).

With the Muslim population explosion in Europe, the final
configuration of that last resurrection of the Holy Roman
Empire may occur sooner than some people think, while Europeans
of a traditional heritage are still the obvious majority in
Europe.

Developments in Europe will surprise a world unaware of what
the Bible has to say about the time leading up to the
prophesied return of Jesus Christ. However, you don’t
have to remain uninformed. I recommend the free booklets
You Can Understand Bible
Prophecy and The Book of Revelation
Unveiled, both available free of charge upon
request.